Sign the Petition to

In 1949, seeing that the Communists were gaining control of China, the Kashag expelled all Chinese connected with the Chinese government, over the protests of both the Kuomingtang and the Communists. Neither the Republic of China nor the People's Republic of China has ever renounced China's claim to sovereignty over Tibet.

The Chinese Communist government led by Mao Zedong, which came to power in October, lost little time in asserting a new Chinese presence in Tibet. In June 1950 the UK Government in the House of Commons
stated that His Majesty's Government "have always been prepared to
recognise Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, but only on the understanding
that Tibet is regarded as autonomous" On 7 October 1950, The People's Liberation Armyinvaded the Tibetan area of Chamdo.
The large number of units of the PLA quickly surrounded the outnumbered
Tibetan forces, and by October 19, 1950, 5,000 Tibetan troops had
surrendered. In 1951, representatives of Tibetan authority, with the Dalai Lama's authorization, participated in negotiations with the Chinese government in Beijing. This resulted in a Seventeen Point Agreement which established China's sovereignty over Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later. According to the Tibetan government-in-exile, some members of the Tibetan Cabinet (Kashag), for example, Tibetan Prime Minister Lukhangwa, never accepted the agreement.
But the National Assembly of Tibet, "while recognizing the extenuating
circumstances under which the delegates had to sign the 'agreement',
asked the government to accept the 'agreement'...the Kashag told Zhang
Jingwu that it would radio its acceptance of the 'agreement'." Tibetan exile sources generally consider it invalid, as having been reluctantly or unwillingly signed under duress. On the path that was leading him into exile in India, the 14th Dalai Lama
arrived March 26, 1959 at Lhuntse Dzong where he repudiated the
"17-point Agreement" as having been "thrust upon Tibetan Government and
people by the threat of arms." and reaffirmed his government as the only legitimate representative of Tibet. According to this agreement between the Tibetan and Chinese central
governments, the Dalai Lama-ruled Tibetan area was supposed to be a
highly autonomous area of China.

From the beginning, it was obvious that incorporating Tibet into
Communist China would bring two opposite social systems face-to-face.
In western Tibet, however, the Chinese Communists opted not to make
social reform an immediate priority. On the contrary, from 1951 to 1959,
traditional Tibetan society with its lords and manorial estates
continued to function unchanged. Despite the presence of twenty thousand PLA troops in Central Tibet,
the Dalai Lama's government was permitted to maintain important symbols
from its de facto independence period.

Tibetan areas in Qinghai,
which were outside the authority of the Dalai Lama's government, did
not enjoy this same autonomy and had land redistribution implemented in
full. Most lands were taken away from noblemen and monasteries and
re-distributed to serfs. The Tibetan region of Eastern Kham, previously Xikang
province, was incorporated into the province of Sichuan. Western Kham
was put under the Chamdo Military Committee. In these areas, land reform
was implemented. This involved communist agitators designating
"landlords" — sometimes arbitrarily chosen — for public humiliation in
so-called "struggle sessions", torture, maiming, and even death. It was only after 1959 that China brought the same practices to Central Tibet.

The Chinese built highways that reached Lhasa, and then extended them to the Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani borders. The traditional Tibetan aristocracy and government remained in place and were subsidized by the Chinese government. The first national census in all of the People's Republic of China was held in 1954, counting 2,770,000 ethnic Tibetans in China, including 1,270,000 in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Free Tibet works on a number of campaigns to create awareness of the
situation in Tibet and contribute towards the improvement of human
rights for the lives of the Tibetan people. Free Tibet continues to
gather information from inside Tibet despite strict Government controls,
and to push for international action to solve the current crisis in
Tibet.

Most notably Free Tibet focuses on the abolition of torture, freedom
of religion, the release of political prisoners, and the lobying of the
UK government.

The Dalai Lama,
spiritual leader of Tibet, has said he does not encourage the protests,
but he has praised the courage of those who engage in self-immolation and blamed the self-immolations on "cultural genocide" by the Chinese.

Wen Jiabao,
premier of China, said that such extreme actions hurt social harmony
and that Tibet and the Tibetan areas of Sichuan are integral parts of
Chinese territory. According to The Economist, the self-immolations have caused the government's attitude to harden.

Impact

Self-immolations by Tibetans protesting Chinese domination of Tibet
have had a greater impact than earlier protests. Despite considerable
loss of life during the Tibetan protests in 2008
on the part of both the Tibetan and Han population in Tibet, casualties
were simply not reported by the Chinese government. Self-immolations,
on the other hand, result in dramatic images of the protester, while
burning or afterwards,
which can be easily transmitted over the internet to news media and
supporters. Internet access has reached even remote areas in the parts
of China where Tibetans live.